Obama's campaign calendar blues

The White House is in the final stages of preparing a midterm campaign schedule for President Barack Obama through October that has only one color code: deep, deep blue.

In just the past few weeks, the list of expected stops has shrunk, with several campaigns that were requesting the president as recently as late August now pulling back those requests.

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And the White House has itself grown more hesitant, reconsidering a tentative schedule circulated earlier this month out of concern that world events may force Obama to cut back his campaigning. Not only will he need to devote time to managing the expanded bombing campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, but aides will be looking to avoid the optics of ordering strikes en route to political rallies.

Plans being discussed would have the president and first lady Michelle Obama, either separately or together, campaigning throughout the next month, according to people familiar with what’s being discussed.

Responding to months of pleas from Democrats urging the White House to provide more help, the president and first lady will be going to places where there are competitive races — though only those in clearly Democratic territory, focusing on locations where the president’s approval remains strong even as it’s dropped pretty much everywhere else.

As expected, and as requested by the campaigns themselves, that will mean the president will avoid all but one Senate race — in Michigan — while the first lady will appear in Iowa on behalf of Bruce Braley. There’s also some thought that she could head to New Hampshire for Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, likely for a joint event with Gov. Maggie Hassan playing up that they’re the only two candidates for governor and senator from the same state who are both women.

But most of the Obamas’ focus will be outside the Senate, and in reliably friendly parts of the country.

Obama will also appear on the radio more — a Democratic National Committee ad for African-American stations, announced last week, was one of several he recorded in the same sitting, with more anticipated.

“He helps us make our case, and he helps excite the base,” said Lon Johnson, the Michigan Democratic Party chairman, who’s expecting the president to campaign for both Rep. Gary Peters for Senate and former Rep. Mark Schauer for governor.

Obama’s approval, though, continues to drop in internal and public polling, complicating some of the plans. Obama will now not go to Colorado to stump for Sen. Mark Udall. Obama attended a fundraiser for him earlier in the summer — which Udall himself skipped — and in the time since, Udall became the only senator to publicly express disappointment over the president’s decision to delay executive action on immigration.

“The president’s numbers have gotten progressively worse, and that has severely restricted the number of battleground states he can go to. His handling of immigration and stumbling onto an [ISIL] strategy have only made it worse,” complained a senior Democratic strategist.

Obama’s also not currently planning on going to New Hampshire for Shaheen, whose recent polls show a clear Obama drag.

“The president and the first lady are extremely busy, and their schedules are often determined very last minute. However, they know that they are always welcome in the Granite State,” Ray Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman, said in a provided statement, signaling the current sentiment.

Publicly, Obama’s sticking to a script of being very active on behalf of Senate candidates, saying Tuesday night at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fundraiser in New York that there’s a clear argument for beating Republicans, and that “I’m prepared to do whatever I can over the next month on behalf of that vision.”

The White House has avoided making any public announcement of its midterm plans to allow the individual campaigns to put out the news themselves and because it’s wary of making robust promises that it won’t keep.